The Hawaii water polo team locked down Cal when it mattered and locked up a semifinal berth in the NCAA Tournament.

Goalkeeper Daisy Logtens came up with several clutch stops in the fourth quarter as the fourth-seeded Rainbow Wahine rallied to win 8-7 over the Golden Bears, who knocked UH out in the 2024 national semifinals.

First-year head coach James Robinson attained the first NCAA postseason win of his career after serving as an assistant to Maureen Cole the last two years.

“Talk about resiliency, being able to fight back in that fourth quarter and make stop after stop,” Robinson said in a video interview from the IU Natatorium in Indianapolis, Ind.

UH (22-4) takes on top-seeded Stanford (23-1) at 6 a.m. Hawaii time Saturday for a shot at the program’s first national championship match. It will be livestreamed at NCAA.com.

UH sprinted out to a 4-0 lead on Cal, but saw its advantage dwindle to 5-3 by halftime against the up-tempo Bears, whose Eszter Varro netted a hat trick. The MPSF team took a 6-5 lead entering the fourth quarter.

From there, Logtens, the Big West’s first-team goalkeeper from the Netherlands, batted away a series of balls put on frame by Cal. She finished with 12 saves, a program record in an NCAA Tournament game, bettering her own record of 11 from last year.

“To be honest, obviously the last moments are really important, but they don’t feel any different than any other moment in the game,” said Logtens, who was given the honor of applying Hawaii’s name to the final four in the poolside NCAA bracket.

Robinson, sitting between Logtens and Big West Player of the Year Bernadette Doyle on the interview table, smiled at the sophomore’s reserved response.

“When the moment is the biggest, she steps up when we need a huge save,” Robinson said moments before Logtens spoke. “One of the most cool, calm and collected individuals on the team. And I mean, she showed that, big stop after big stop, not getting rattled, just awesome performance all around, but that fourth quarter was special.”

Center Jordan Wedderburn tied it up in the opening seconds of the fourth. BWC Freshman of the Year Ema Vernoux then scored on a penalty shot drawn by Camille Radosavljevic. Doyle put her team in prime position to advance by lobbing in a goal for a two-goal lead with 4:35 remaining.

Cal (19-6) scored on a steal with nine seconds left, but UH drained the rest of the clock.

Doyle, Wedderburn, Vernoux and Alia Burlock scored two goals apiece for UH.

Doyle referenced the team’s disappointment falling to Cal 9-6 in last year’s tournament, falling agonizingly shy of the program’s first title game appearance. She also referenced teammate Tara Logan, who went home to Australia due to a family emergency.

“We really wanted this today. We wanted it for all our families. We wanted it for our teammate, Tara,” Doyle said. “We wanted it for the Hawaiian Islands, and we came up firing because we’re all so united as a team, and we’re stoked, especially after last year, which was a little bit heartbreaking. We came out and just wanted to prove to everyone how hard we’ve been working this year under Coach James.”

Stanford beat UH 12-7 on Jan. 18 in the second match of the season. The Cardinal, one of three programs to account for all NCAA women’s water polo national titles along with UCLA and USC, blitzed Wagner 28-6 in their quarterfinal.

“Stanford, obviously, is an amazing team, 1 in the country for a reason, a lot of Olympians,” Robinson said. “I think it’s going to take a lot of what we just did, and more. We’ve got to be smart. Can’t give them any transition opportunities, which is obviously a challenge in and of itself. Got to be willing to be aggressive and attack them right back. You can’t be passive against a Stanford team like this.”

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.